November 20, 2006

We are exhausted. I didn't bring any knitting at all. Eight days. 2 little kids. No sticks and strings. Barely any alcohol. Payback for all of the kid-free vacations we enjoyed in the first six years of our marriage, and really a lot of fun.

I've been having a great knit on Jordana Paige's Ayla from Fall Knitty. True to form, I couldn't just follow the pattern, but I used an awful lot of it.

As you can see, I used tones of blue and purple, in Patons Classic. The yellow was 2 strands of some Knitpicks Palette from an old project.

The changes?

The shape is borrowed from my own design, the Samantha backpack. It's shaped with short rows on one of the edges. The curved edge is 90 stitches, and the flat one 58.

I then worked 3 rows stockinette and created the ridge by knitting the next row together with the stitch 3 rows back. I saw this in Little Slip of a Thing and it was a great way to create the visual interest without adding any sewing.

I then really stretched myself - intarsia in the round, people! This meant I could continue up the bag without any seaming to do. Here is a shot of the beginning of round.

As you can see, it looks a bit gnarly at the beginning, but I got better at it and doing it without colour changes was much easier. I think the ridge will be felted away in its entirety.

When I got past the colourwork, I switched back to plain old knitting in the round. What a relief!

For the straps, I picked them up from the bottom ridge like this:

and knit them simultaneously from each end of a skein.

They met at the top, and were then knit together with a row at the top of the body. Notice a theme here? Still no sewing!

I got to just past the eyelet round in the blues, then switched to purple. The top rows, applied i-cord at the top (not in the original pattern) and the ties are all in purple.

The whole works is felting as we speak, and I am so excited!

In other news, the neglected one, AKA my husband of ten years, finally received a new pair of socks this week.

I have also been playing with some Knitpicks Essential Tweed, but it is not good. The tweedy bits don't seem to be wound in tightly enough, so the socks are shedding their flecks. I think after a few washes, they will just be plain charcoal gray socks. Soft and lovely, but nothing super special. This is my first Knitpicks disappointment.

November 05, 2006

A few days ago, my mom celebrated her birthday. It was a milestone one, but I'll preserve her privacy and not share the number.

My mom and I are best friends. We have a precious relationship that has evolved over the years. When I needed to be mothered, I was mothered. She didn't play the "cool mom". Now that I am (reasonably) grown and have kids of my own, we enjoy a closeness and friendship that I treasure so much.

This blog installment is dedicated to the first ten things I could think of that are cool about my mom. Not the only things, not the most important ones, just the first ones that jump to mind. Please consider devoting a post to the same on your own blog.

Ready?

She graduated from university with a Bachelors degress in Business Administration. In 1966. (Stop doing the math; I'm not going to tell you how old she is!) If you don't think that's a cool factoid, consider this: she was one of only two women in her graduating class, and no, she wasn't the one the boys considered the "friendly" one.

She and my dad are the model of respect and devotion, and will celebrate FORTY years of marriage in a couple of months.

She used to take my sister and I to feminist rallies when we were really really little. At the time, I didn't understand why I had a button that said, "Why not?", but I still thought it was pretty cool to wear it.

She and my dad made the education of us kids a top priority. When I graduated from uni in 1996, I had negligible student loans, despite the fact that it took me three years to gain admission into my program of choice.

When hub and I decided we didn't want a big family wedding, she and my dad not only supported the decision for us to go away and get married, they wrote a ridiculously generous cheque to ensure it would happen.

Mary has more than once been the Thelma to my Louise (or the other way around - she can be the pretty, as long as I can be the one who knocks boots with Brad Pitt). The Maine-NB border patrol had a bit to say about the great shopping debacle of 1994!

She displays a warmth and generosity with my daughters that cannot even be described.

She is as obsessed as I am and thinks nothing of traveling hours for knitting workshops and the like. I must admit, I feel pretty proud to be a part of "that mother and daughter" when we're in classes together!

November 03, 2006

In a stunning three-peat, I have submitted three patterns unsuccessfuly during this fall season.

Lark Books declined on the stretch tank. No biggie, I wasn't relishing doing the sizing. I'm going to knit up some sort of a prototype for the Needful Yarns design contest.

Knitty passed on my dropped-stitch sock. Not too disappointing, but I think the heel from that pattern needs to be shared. Will post the pattern on the sidebar when my Adobe has been fixed

Ditto on a felted tote. I know there are bazillions of felted totes out there, but I feel this one had something to add to the mix in unique construction and vertical striping. Will post it for the sharing; there's no point in keeping it to myself.

I am disappointed, but not overly so. I am enjoying the procedure of assembling these submissions and learning a lot. I will continue to submit and consider these setbacks a statistical improvement on my chances for next time.

On the plus side, I will have a pattern appearing in Winter Knitty. It was one I submitted for the fall, but was more winter-appropriate and needed the photography to go along with it. After a re-shoot in September, it seems the design is a go for December!

On the super duper side, the Yahoo Group"For_The_Love_Of_Socks" has chosen Diamante for their "experienced" November KAL! I am very excited and have joined the group so I can see all of their finished products! Do consider joining if you have an inkling to try the pattern. They seem like a very nice bunch!

The wonderful Debbie Bliss graciously agreed to not only pose for a photo, but to hold the Diamante prototype while doing so. Debbie and I talked about Knitty, which she described as "very nice". She also mentioned what wonderful things she'd heard about its intrepid editor. She said she was planning to take a peek at my pattern online, which made me want to faint. I'm a bit of a ninny that way.

The prototype has now made a home at Baadeck Yarns, where I hope it will help Pat sell a zillion skeins of Opal solids.

The Baadeck pinks knit up just beautifully into a pair of sock for a friend's mom, who recently had surgery for breast cancer. I borrowed heavily from the concepts of a pattern here.

November 01, 2006

I am, of course, dreadfully behind on my blogging. I am one of those unfortunate souls who actually enjoys working, so my casual job is sometimes more than casual.

My weekend in Baddeck? Fantastic. Debbie Bliss is a delight. She is unpretentious and lovely. She spent some time discussing with our group her design process, how colours find their way into her palette, and the inspiration for the fantastic photographs in her books. We then had then chance to fondlelust after take a peek at many of the garments from her current books.

I had fallen out of the sweater habit for awhile, but this really made me want to make more moreMORE!

I purchased a copy of her book "Out of Town", which features designs in a number of her current yarns. I suspect over the coming year I will make several of the designs, but I have chosen one particular design to taunt inspire me to finish my current projects. I plan to do the Circular Cardigan in Handmaiden Ottawa, in the Cape Breton Highlands colourway that is exclusive to Baadeck Yarns.

The haul? Better than one might expect for a yarn-dieting girl. Does sock yarn count? Because if it doesn't, I was a very good girl. I got some clearance Opal (clearance definitely doesn't count), some solid Opals for some projects in the back of my head, and a gorgeous hank of Fleece Artist sock yarn in the Baadeck Pinks colourway. (Don't bother to look for it online, as it's another one of Pat's exclusives). I also got a stick brooch for my Circular Cardi, like the one modeled on Handmaiden's Maid Marion Vest.

In absentia purchases don't count, right? The lovely Kathryn was returning to dye the Ottawa for my cardi this week, so I will likely receive it in the coming weeks.

I have more the share, including photos, but I have to work in 17 minutes and I hear little people stirring.